is address people’s fear of the unknown,” says Mauricio
Velasquez, president of the Diversity Training Group
(DTG), a Virginia-based company that conducts diver
sity and gender equity training for clients like Hewlett
Packard, Lucent Technologies, and Fila. To try to under
stand this “diversity training adversity,” we’ve decided to
learn more: about the objectives of diversity training
sessions, the expectations and experiences of partici
pants, and—when all is said and done—the results.
Velasquez says that the objectives of DTG’s ses
sions are to help people understand exactly
what inclusivity in the workplace means—
taking all perspectives and backgrounds into
a 29-year-old biracial social worker, this exercise was
explosive and illustrated that diversity issues are more
than skin deep. “Someone mentioned a stereotype
about blacks being lazy and shiftless. A Caribbean
American said, ‘That’s only true of the American blacks.
We [Caribbean blacks] generally have two or three jobs.’
Then, everybody was up in arms. We didn’t even get to
finish the exercise.”
The success of these discussions, of course, depends
on the candor of participants, a factor that some say is
inhibited by management participation. “Because senior
management was also in the session, it was hard for peo
THE BLACK-AND-WHITE PENGUIN5 WHO DOMINATED
SENIOR MANAGEMENT TOLD A MULTICOLORED
PEACOCK THAT SHE'D BE PROMOTED TO A BOARD
POSITION IF SHE TONED DOWN HER COLORS.
account when making a decision or putting
a business practice into place. Trainers
explain the benefit of diversity for individu
als and the company, and the numerous ways
that employees can take an active role in
creating an inclusive work environment.
To do all that, a typical training session usually
includes some or all of the following elements: a ques
tionnaire to be completed before the session (to elicit
participants’ initial ideas about difference and diversity),
discussion, role-playing, lectures, and films. Though our
interviewees’ diversity training almost invariably
focused on black-and-white racial equity, sessions can
be much more inclusive. Vanessa Waite*, a 28-year-old
senior analyst, says her investment bank’s diversity train
ing emphasized that “diversity is not just about race and
gender. It includes gay people, older people, flexibility in
the workplace, etc.”
Often, a session begins with participants listing
stereotypes or characteristics about themselves both
as individuals and as members of their respective diver
sity groups, followed by discussion. Naima Jones*, a
25-year-old former employee at a sports company,
attended a training session where sexual orientation
became the hot button. “It got tense when someone
raised the issue of a gay person not feeling comfortable
hanging up a picture of their partner, whereas married
people do it with no problem.” For Charles Richmond*,
pie to really say what was on their minds,” remembers
Nunes. Jones agrees, noting that her company’s third
highest-ranking executive was also at the training. “I
couldn’t talk freely with him sitting right there.”
One way to overcome this lack of candor is with films.
Used effectively, films can give the participants universal,
nonthreatening language to use in their communica
tion—a way to talk more easily about complicated issues.
For example, Marina Ray*, 26, an assistant vice president
of Internet marketing, attended a session where an ani
mated film known as “The Penguin and the Peacock” was
shown. In the film, the black-and-white penguins who
dominated senior management told a multicolored pea
cock that she’d be promoted to the board if she toned
down her colors. Coveting the promotion, the peacock
donned a penguin suit and won the board seat. When her
vibrant, recalcitrant colors peeked through the costume,
however, the penguins dismissed her. “After the training,
the senior VP said that our current board was all white
men and that the company was going to name a new
board member shortly,” says Ray. “Someone asked, ‘Is
that person going to be a peacock?’ No one would have
ever asked that type of question before.”
Films can also be an effective means of presenting
potentially inflammatory issues, in part because a film
can seem more objective than a speaker. Angela Vallot,
director of corporate diversity initiatives at Texaco
(which has worked to make diversity strides since it set
tled a $176 million racial discrimination suit in 1996),
says that Texaco shows one clip where a car salesman
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